I enjoy inventing new dances, taking the best of other dances and combining them, or making dances that suit particular audiences. It is quite simple with ceilidh since most tunes are made up of blocks of 8 bars and subdivide into 8 beat sections fitting nicely with a wide range of dance figures, and there are a profusion of tunes that are 32, 40 or 48 bars long, 32 being the most common.
So, we have a new dance to add to our repertoire and it is great for sociable crowds, easy to dance and learn and fun for beginners as well as seasoned ceilidhers. It has been tested out at a wedding ceilidh and with our intermediate class, who agreed it was good fun. Sarelle from our class is to be thanked for the name, more romantic and imaginative than the alternatives of ‘Longways Pat a Cake Polka’ or ‘Pat a Cake Reel’. The figures reminded her of combing a horse’s mane.
This combines elements from some favourite ceilidh dances:
– Pat a Cake polka, an easy and popular Old Tyme dance
– Dhoon Jig, a slightly unusual longways set Scottish Country dance where the two lines dance on opposite directions to start and then partners meet again.
– Virginia Reel, a very common and popular, high-energy, Scottish ceilidh dance with a long history that involves various trips across the Atlantic.
Horse’s Mane
32 bar jig, reel or polka
Longways set for up to 8 couples. The longer the set the more energetic the dancers need to be. We’ve tested this with 4, 5 and 7 couples and all worked well. For less experienced dancers you might choose a shorter set length since they might quite keep up the music otherwise.
A1 (Bars 1 – 8):
Hold hands in lines. Using right feet, tap heel, toe, heel, toe, then take four side steps to the right. So 2 lines diverge since everyone goes to their own right. 8 beats.
Using left feet, tap heel, toe, heel, toe, then take four side steps to the left. This returns you to facing your partner. 8 beats.
A2 (Bars 9 – 16):
Release hands. With your partner play pat-a-cake. Pat-a-cake is a playground game, clap right hands together, left hands together, tap both your hands on your own knees, clap both hands together with your partner. This is 8 beats where you can essentially do any acceptable thing with your partner, so feel free to improvise. 8 beats.
Take your partner in a crossed arm hold (we liked the single forearm hold for a fast spin) and spin with your partner for 8 beats. For those who don’t like fast spinning you might prefer ballroom hold and to polka around (step hop x 4). 8 beats.
B1 (Bars 17 – 24):
Back into your lines. Top couple take both hands together and gallop to the bottom of the set for 8 beats and back for 8 beats. Other dancers clap enthusiastically. 16 beats.
B2 (Bars 24 – 32):
Top couple cast to the bottom of the set and make an arch with two hands. 8 beats.
All people in the lines follow the leader casting down to the bottom following the top dancers. Meet your partner at the bottom of the set below the arch, take inside hands with each other and together go through the arch, then up to the top of the set. Dancers stay in that same order so couple 2 is the new top couple and couple 1 is at the bottom of the set. 16 beats.
Have fun!
Note: If this dance has already been invented by someone else do please let me know it’s name and who first authored it. It is quite possible for multiple people to choreograph the same ceilidh dance, especially using a finite selection of common ceilidh dance figures.
Ceilidh Cornwall 